AIBU -fine for picking child up late

[Arnoldthecat]

This is not me,its just a true story that was related to me and i wondered if anyone had similar experiences.

A friend has a child at the local montessori and picks him up at 1300 so only on a morning stay. She states quite adamantly that she was 2 minutes late picking him up recently and was charged an extra £10. A note on the door states that if your child is booked in for the afternoon only, you cannot bring the child in until exactly 1300. If someone arrived at 1310 could they get a £10 refund ?

Those saying that 2 mins is a bit 'heavy handed'; what would be reasonable? 3 minutes? 5? 7?

10 minutes would seem reasonable then they can enforce it religiously. The reason they shouldn't fine for 2 minutes is because there are probably 20 kids in a session and it would be impossible for them all to be collected simultaneously.

I heard of a nursery that found lateness got WORSE when they started charging - because parents then felt entitled to be late as they were paying for it...

A rigid policy is usually in place or applied to individuals if without it lots of parents,mor the same parents often come late. There will always be an excuse 'traffic jam', 'younger child needed nappy changing' etc etc.

The point isn't whether there is still a staff memeber there, or one waiting to do the afternoon shift or whatever, the point is that you have paid for or are entitled to a certain amount of time and the deal is that beyond this, you have to pay more. It is intended to be a detterant and nurseries will enforce it with ise who are late, not always on a first time but often after that. Your friend says 2 mins - it might well be 2 mins but she might have done it before and these are the terms she's agreed to and now she knows they are serious about it. They aren't charging for something she didn't have/do.

And how ridiculous to suggest this means if you're late you get a refund. Honestly, the so-called logic of some people! The nursery has paid its staff for the hours your child is booked in for and will have to pay them (and all the other costs involved in running a nursery) whether your child turns up in time or not. You asked for the service to be provided and it was, so you pay.

The nursery isn't the CF, but your friend is for being annoyed about this. The thing is, lots of people think it's okay to be late 'because it was just a few minutes' and it's because of this at nurseries have to introduce the strict policy. And even wo the strict policy, unless they enforce it, people still start taking the piss. So now your friend knows what will happen if she's late. Perhaps she'll factor inthatbthe traffic is a bit unreliable more in terms of when she leaves to collect DC, so that she is on time, rather than thinking the nursery rather than her should bear the burden of her cutting it too fine.

10 minutes would seem reasonable then they can enforce it religiously

But that would simply shift the line. Official pick up time would be 1.10pm. And people would whinge if they were fined at 11 or 12 minutes past, because it was 'only a minute or two'. That, I'm afraid, is what customers are like.

Late fees happen because some parents take the absolute piss!

To ensure any nursery is compliant and operating as it should be then staff ratios have to be maintained.

Lunch breaks for staff with in a nursery usually happen between 11_2 /3pm on a one in, one out basis.

A parent picking up late even for a few minutes can mean

A room is out of ratio and another member of staff has to be found from somewhere to cover to maintain ratios.

Or

Staff lunch breaks get hideously delayed if they cannot go on their break and they need to stay to matain the ratio.

This

Can then start to impact on learning /activities for the children, as they maybe delayed slightly.

It also means that if staff are having to handover and talk to a late picking up parent then the supervision of the other children is compromised. Yes, they are in the room, but they are talking, so that staff member's attention is not 100% on the children.

Most Nurseries will not fine for a one off unavoidable late pick up.

Late pick ups are bad at lunch time, but are dreadful when it happens at 18.30/19.00 at the end of the day because it distresses the child and has an impact on the staff who want to get home after a long day. Some, who have their own children they need to pick up.

No, you cannot expect a discount for arriving ten minutes after session starts. Your child has been registered for the session and staff rotas to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all the children to ensure correct ratios have been done in advance. The staff have to be there.

I too have had heard of a nursery where people were increasingly late as they knew they'd be charged and felt entitled to come late as they knew they'd pay.

I've heard of 2 responses to this. One was that the nursery brought its closing time forward and the other was that it trebled its late charges and also gave warnings that children whose parents were X amount late X amounts of times were in danger of being asked to leave - it was a very popular nursery and they could afford to do this.

I think everyone understands you can be a bit late because of traffic, or sometimes something goes catasrophically wrong resulting in significant lateness. Nurseries know and parents know and parents just have to a accept that they will be charged......usually reduces the amount of times it happens to those that are unavoidable rather than people just not building enou flexibility into their travel plans.

My sons old preschool was £2.50 per 15 minutes, i think a £10 fee is a bit ridiculous for just two minutes but I do believe there should be a fine or people would just take the Micky.

But that would simply shift the line. Official pick up time would be 1.10pm. And people would whinge if they were fined at 11 or 12 minutes past, because it was 'only a minute or two'. That, I'm afraid, is what customers are like.

True people will complain either way. I would just be honest and have a rigid window of time. I don't see how everyone can be picked up at exactly 1pm. Presumably the kids need to be signed out, get their shoes on etc.

It's in Freakanomics

It has to be high or everyone will weigh it up and think it's worth it. If it was 10 minutes, everyone would treat it that the nursery closed 10 minutes later.

There could be a bit of leeway on the day at the discretion of staff- but I bet this wasn't the first time your friend was "3 minutes" late. She won't be again, will she?

I worked in a nursery where they had to implement late fees because of just one CF parent. She used to regularly be a 10-15 minutes late - nursery closed at 6pm, and the staff let it slide because we were there clearing up for about that much time anyway. Then it began to slip to 20 minutes, so we told the owner. But CF was her friend, so let her off, annoyingly for us staff!

Then one day she was 40 minutes late, I stayed behind with the owner to wait. In the end I had to phone CF parent to remind her to pick up her child. CF owned a shop down the road so we knew she had no traffic issues. When I phoned she just went "Oh God is that the time".

Next day late fees of £1 per minute were implemented. CF still did it but the staff got the extra money so we didn't mind so much!

Sounds fair enough to me.

Some kids get very upset that they're left behind, unlike the others whose parents are always waiting for them when they come out.

Staff aren't getting their legal entitlement to a break if they're babysitting somebody's child.

Having an extra 1/2/4 children still there when the afternoon session turn up completely screws over the legal supervision ratios. (Because it wouldn't be just one child if nobody was fined).

Afternoon parents wouldn't appreciate being made late for work because they can't complete drop off until the extra kids are picked up.

You're paying a business for a service. It's not done because it's a nice thing to do to look after children, it's to earn money, put a roof over the head and food in the tummies of the staff and their children.

And I'm willing to bet that the 2 minutes was actually nearer 7 minutes after the very latest the other children had left.

Most nurseries charge a late fee and stick to it.

Ours is £5 for every 5 minutes. They still have to cover all the costs for your child. You’ve signed up to the terms and conditions and they’re there for very good reason - to stop CFers constantly collecting their kids late.

I’ve been charged £50 for being 5 mins late for a 1pm pick up before.

We charge £10 for first 5 mins then £1 per minute

If your late, your late. It's to stop people talking the mick.

Wouldn't be surprised if she was 2 minutes later after the tolerance cut off point - ie. perhaps there is some flexibility up to 5 minutes late and anyone after that is charged. 13.02 seems a bit strange as if the children are let out at 13.00 it would take more than 2 minutes for everyone to be handed over to their parents.
It reminded me of some people on a driving course I did (I'm in another country - it's compulsory after your test). They asked us if any of us had speeding tickets yet... couple of people said they had and moaned because they were only going 2 kmph over the speed limit. Turned out they meant they were 2 kmph over the tolerance limit.

And it's a pain in the neck for the nursery when they are trying to settle children in for the afternoon session who have just arrived and a couple of children are hanging around waiting to be picked up.

We’ve recently updated our late fee policy to make it more of a deterrent. We had a couple of parents who clearly thought the existing fee was a bargain and totally abused it. When a parent is late to pick up, two members of staff have to stay behind and often (at least twice a week, with these particular 2 parents) I’d end up missing activities and always losing time with my own children at home. So we implemented a late fee that was quite high and all of the fee goes to the 2 members of staff that stay behind as compensation for their time. We’ve only ever applied the fee to those parents, though. For one off unavoidable lateness we don’t apply it.

Is it really a fine? I would call it an excess fee. And since they clearly want the switchover to be as smooth as possible to avoid disruption they have set that fee at a rate which is a deterrent.

If a parent was delayed by a true emergency and phoned ahead I assume they would levy more acceptable fees if they were legally able to accommodate the request.

Well thanks for relating all your experiences and feedback. I guess nursery places and Montessori places are scarce so they can do this and parents have no choice but to pay up and learn and if they dont like it, their child will be ejected.

Whats a CF by the way?

The parents do have a choice - they could choose to collect their child on time. Obviously sometimes something might happen and they will be late but the nursery will have to apply the rules to everyone otherwise you would have CFs (cheeky fuckers) taking the piss all the time which causes problems for the nursery (as explained in several posts above).

It’s £20 per 15 mins late at DD nursery. I’ve never been late so no idea how strict they are.

Yes, I’d be annoyed at being out of pocket. But not annoyed at the nursery as that is the agreement I signed.

My DS's nursery charges £1 per minute late. It really motivates me to sprint from the station when my train is behind schedule.

Late fees have to be high enough to deter parents/carers from seeing it as cheap childcare. The nursery I work at closes at 6:30, this means after 6:30 I'm not being paid and more importantly we're not insured to have children on the premises. Parents who turn up literally at 6:30 and expect a full handover then eat into my personal time, are on site after our insurance is ended for the day and often have to deal with children who are sad as they're the last ones left when all their friends have gone home.

I think a lot of parents see a session end time as the time to turn up but actually you ought to consider it as the latest time at which you and your child leave the setting. So as a rule if you'd like detailed handover/a little chat then you ought to be turning up 10-15 minutes before the end of session.